And the relatively small section the city is charged with maintaining, from north of the Annenberg Community Beach House to Will Rogers State Beach, remained covered with sand that had been there since the storms of last spring.

Scrape marks left by a front loader after clearing the sand from the concrete.

What a difference a few days makes.

On Thursday, Eric B commented that he’d just seen a heavy front loader, followed by someone with a leaf blower clearing away the sand, on the bike path. So I reworked my planned route for the next day to take in that section.

Focused on my ride, I was halfway through before I saw the telltale scrape marks on the concrete. And finally noticed what wasn’t there.

Sand.

Now there's enough room that users in each direction can stay on their own side.

It had been cleared away at last, and the path was open and truly ridable for the first time in months. And like me, no one even seemed to notice.

Which is exactly how it should be.

So thank you, Mr. Haynes, or whoever it was who was responsible for finally getting it cleaned. Now if you can just have those maintenance people come back every now and then to keep it that way, we’ll all be happy.

There's still a little sand spilling over in places, but nothing we can't ride around.

Speaking of which, I received a report this morning from LAPD bike liaison Sgt. David Krumer that he observed police officers advising pedestrians to stay off the bike path in Venice over the weekend.

The boat beached after a fatal sailing accident was finally removed on Friday.

So after months of dealing with a barely ridable path — and in the case of pedestrians on the bike path, years of virtual non-enforcement of the bikes-only restrictions — it looks like we’re finally making some progress on Southern California’s most popular bikeway.

Now if someone can just give me the name of whoever is in charge of getting the sun to come out…

No one seem to notice where city assumes responsibility for maintaining the bike path; they just enjoyed a nice ride for a change.